Baseball + Art
Aug. 7th, 2025 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbakerMonday we flew to LA for a quick vacation.
It didn't start great: our normally-reliable cab service didn't show. And didn't show. We were starting to lightly panic that we wouldn't make our flight so I called a competitor - who showed up within five minutes. Guess they get our next call. Fortunately, even with only an hour to spare, getting through security with TSA pre-check took less than ten minutes. We don't fly much, but it's been totally worth it when we have.
We splurged slightly on our rental car: instead of the usual cheapest econo-box, we got a small Mercedes. It was only $15 more so what the heck. It was certainly comfortable and accelerated quickly and smoothly. We had a bit of a snafu when we got to the car though - we couldn't figure out how to move the seats, where the parking brake was, and any number of small but essential things. Fortunately the manual was in the glove box, but sheesh. Then the rental lot was having some sort of problem with their security gates at checkout. It took almost half an hour with only a few cars ahead of us. Not a great start.
But hey, we drove through typical LA traffic to our hotel. Which happened to be right around Di$neyland, but that's because the the Angels Angels ballpark is also only a mile away. (I started calling them that when they changed their name to "The Los Angeles Angels". Redundant much?)
The ballgame was fine. Attendance was light because both teams are mediocre this year. TTAA had a Korean pitcher starting, and I assume that's why part of the pre-game entertainment was a K-Pop girl group. Meh, not my jam. Also all the video board stuff was essentially ads - "Go buy food here! Visit our advertiser!" rather than team highlights. But at least they didn't have basketball-style LEDs flashing all the time the way the Padres did when we visited. Disappointingly, they didn't have any interesting beer. Perhaps because Modelo is a major sponsor so they mainly serve beers from that conglomerate. There is an in-stadium brewery that had some taps I would have tried, but I only found out after drinking a Modelo and I didn't feel like having another beer. I did appreciate that they sell beer in the stands until late in the game; that's been discontinued in most parks including SF.
The next morning we slept in a bit and then headed out to the Getty to see an exhibit on 17th c painter Gentileschi, who is a favorite of the wife's. Traffic was quite heavy but we got to the museum about half an hour after they opened. I discovered that I apparently lost my prescription sunglasses at the ballgame the night before. Aargh - that made walking around outside with all the reflections from white panels difficult. The exhibit was interesting, if small at only one room. We spent the day seeing art.
It was still a bit early for dinner, but we picked a Cajun crab boil place for dinner and with traffic, it was after 5 PM when we got there. It was good, if a bit more casual than what my brain wanted. (Also, no beer.) When we got back to the hotel we thought about getting a drink at the bar, but decided to walk a couple blocks for ice cream instead. That turned out to be the right choice: extremely popular with the locals, it serves East Coast custard that's blended with shaved ice. This sounds weird but was fluffy and quite good.
Wednesday we tried an adequate local chicken-and-waffles place for breakfast before returning the rental and sitting at the airport for our flight. Miss Beatrice was unhappy that we had left her, but she did snuggle against me for much of the night which I appreciated.
And now back to catching up on work.
It didn't start great: our normally-reliable cab service didn't show. And didn't show. We were starting to lightly panic that we wouldn't make our flight so I called a competitor - who showed up within five minutes. Guess they get our next call. Fortunately, even with only an hour to spare, getting through security with TSA pre-check took less than ten minutes. We don't fly much, but it's been totally worth it when we have.
We splurged slightly on our rental car: instead of the usual cheapest econo-box, we got a small Mercedes. It was only $15 more so what the heck. It was certainly comfortable and accelerated quickly and smoothly. We had a bit of a snafu when we got to the car though - we couldn't figure out how to move the seats, where the parking brake was, and any number of small but essential things. Fortunately the manual was in the glove box, but sheesh. Then the rental lot was having some sort of problem with their security gates at checkout. It took almost half an hour with only a few cars ahead of us. Not a great start.
But hey, we drove through typical LA traffic to our hotel. Which happened to be right around Di$neyland, but that's because the the Angels Angels ballpark is also only a mile away. (I started calling them that when they changed their name to "The Los Angeles Angels". Redundant much?)
The ballgame was fine. Attendance was light because both teams are mediocre this year. TTAA had a Korean pitcher starting, and I assume that's why part of the pre-game entertainment was a K-Pop girl group. Meh, not my jam. Also all the video board stuff was essentially ads - "Go buy food here! Visit our advertiser!" rather than team highlights. But at least they didn't have basketball-style LEDs flashing all the time the way the Padres did when we visited. Disappointingly, they didn't have any interesting beer. Perhaps because Modelo is a major sponsor so they mainly serve beers from that conglomerate. There is an in-stadium brewery that had some taps I would have tried, but I only found out after drinking a Modelo and I didn't feel like having another beer. I did appreciate that they sell beer in the stands until late in the game; that's been discontinued in most parks including SF.
The next morning we slept in a bit and then headed out to the Getty to see an exhibit on 17th c painter Gentileschi, who is a favorite of the wife's. Traffic was quite heavy but we got to the museum about half an hour after they opened. I discovered that I apparently lost my prescription sunglasses at the ballgame the night before. Aargh - that made walking around outside with all the reflections from white panels difficult. The exhibit was interesting, if small at only one room. We spent the day seeing art.
It was still a bit early for dinner, but we picked a Cajun crab boil place for dinner and with traffic, it was after 5 PM when we got there. It was good, if a bit more casual than what my brain wanted. (Also, no beer.) When we got back to the hotel we thought about getting a drink at the bar, but decided to walk a couple blocks for ice cream instead. That turned out to be the right choice: extremely popular with the locals, it serves East Coast custard that's blended with shaved ice. This sounds weird but was fluffy and quite good.
Wednesday we tried an adequate local chicken-and-waffles place for breakfast before returning the rental and sitting at the airport for our flight. Miss Beatrice was unhappy that we had left her, but she did snuggle against me for much of the night which I appreciated.
And now back to catching up on work.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-08 05:21 pm (UTC)It's nice to get a break from the work routine.